BHLDN sample sale experience (Georgetown, Washington, DC)

I just got back from the BHLDN sample sale in the Georgetown (Washington, DC) location. Before going today, the only information I had read about BHLDN sample sales was from this link and it definitely colored my expectations, so I wanted to share how my experience differed.The sale is scheduled to run today (Sunday) through Tuesday. Today’s hours were from 12pm-6pm. I went with my mom and two aunts and we were roughly 20th in line when we arrived at 10am.We were prepared for a two hour wait and brought folding chairs, but BHLDN actually started letting people in a few at a time at 10:30am. At around 11am, the couple in front of me was let in early but I was informed that they were the last group to be let in early, and that they would open the doors to everyone in a few minutes (which is a full hour before the advertised start time of the sale).I had never before been to the store but I learned that Georgetown’s BHLDN exists inside of their Anthropologie store. The sample sale wasn’t occurring in the BHLDN, but rather down a flight of stairs in the basement, next to the regular sale Anthropologie section. I had to process all of this as I entered the doors at 11:05, and I was the first in a line of probably 80 people rushing in to get a crack at the offerings. Everyone was too dignified to run but we were all definitely power walking, and I was doing my best to maintain my lead so that I could hit the racks first.When I finally got to the basement, I saw two racks of gowns. I was like great, there are the first two racks, now where are the rest? There were no signs indicated which racks contained what sizes, so I just plunged my arms in and grabbed anything in size 4 (was hoping for 6’s but didn’t see any). I was able to grab an armful of gowns before the racks were swarmed with women, so I stepped back and was directed to wait in line for a fitting room. Lucky for me, my mom and aunts had managed to grab a few gowns as well. I had gone into the experience expecting to change in a corner of the room, based on the reddit post above, but at least I was first in line for one of the four fitting rooms.Anyway, at that point I realized that the two racks of gowns were the store’s entire offering – maybe 2-3 dozen gowns in total.The fitting rooms are just the regular Anthropologie fitting rooms with no block to step on. Thankfully, I had brought a folding stepping stool to sit on while waiting in line, so I stood on this while trying on gowns. A lot of the gowns had significant damage that I felt made the gowns unwearable, even at a steep discount. One of the gowns had the beading torn off from 1/4 of the bodice, and another gown’s train was dark gray from being dragged on the floor and ripped from being stepped on.After trying everything on, I decided on the Jolie and the Naya (which had minor damage, as in a few sequins missing here and there, but nothing obvious). The Jolie was $300 and the Naya was $200. I went out to check the racks one more time but quickly saw that this was pointless, since the racks were bare and the line for the fitting room was full of disappointed-looking women.By the time I had my gowns paid for and in hand, it was noon, which was the official starting time of the sample sale. I felt bad for any brides who had traveled to check out the sale, because really, I felt like anyone who was more than a handful of places behind me in line had zero chance of finding anything.So anyhow, things worked out decently for me, but the TL;DR is that the BHLDN sample sale experience probably varies wildly depending on location and other factors. via /r/weddingplanning http://ift.tt/2sEpl5Q